No, this camp is nothing besides letting the coaching staff gauge where the new guys are and letting them know what they should work on before camp. Look how thin we are on the right side. Cherepanov is light years ahead of those guys. If he shows up to training camp, he will be our most talented RW, provided Jagr doesn’t return and we don’t sign a UFA. That doesn’t mean he would be our best RW, just the most talented. That isn’t saying much though.

To continue from last thread,
Amongst the fella’s & gal’s who thing signing Campbell and Jagr, is the general reason for signing them to win the cup or simply make the playoffs?
Amongst the same group of you, did you also vehemently support the pursuit of Drury AND Gomez last off-season?

Just trying to figure out the difference between the two general schools of thought out there.

TrueRags, clearly Sather is just told by Dolan to make the playoffs so he gets to double ticket prices for the first round. Putting a team together to make (and win) the cup requires an investment in the front office and scouting staff.

Of course thank goodness the staff doesn’t include some people who keep posting to sign every hyped up free agent…

Build from within, have good scouts and great coaches, and when you’ve got most of the pieces, then you sign a free agent or two to hopefully fill that hole. That is how you win.

They are on the right track with building, the scouting seems to be getting better, and fortunately the minor league coaches seem to be great. Unfortunately Renney and Co. don’t seem to have a clue… But the Rangers are on the right track to hopefully contend in 3-4 years.

Not that I want to turn this into Blueshirt Bulletin where everyone must act like ‘Shiney Happy Ranger Fans” or run the risk of having two or three experts verbally smack sense into you but…..

Every once in a while I think back six years…seven years and try to remind myself why being pissed at second round exits means things are getting better…..say what you do about Gomez and Drury signings…these are light years smarter then early 2000’s…….

Just remarking on the last post concerning building. The Rangers don’t have a problem with scouting, and I do not believe that Sather is doing a terrible job. Although it sounds off-topic, look at Detroit. It may possibly be argued that Detroit’s scouting organization is markedly better than ours, but I don’t think so.
Anyone who actually believes that Detroit makes everything go their way by their superior scouting/drafting is only partially correct. The successive years of low draft positions they have enjoyed, while continuing to ice an incredbily competitive team should tell anyone there is a lot more than luck of the draw at work.\
They have a great ownership, GM, coaching staff, scouting staff. Does everybody actually really believe that most players the Red Wings draft is right there, at that very time, a gem that cannot miss? No way. They pick a guy with skills who also shows no outward signs of being a total f***up and then they trust the rest of the organizazition to at least find out what the draftee is capable of. Quite contrary to what I hear all the time, I think the biggest factor in ongoing succes is a coaching staff that knows what they are doing.

Not every team can do what Detroit does, they are special. But since we are supposedly talking about how to make a team better, might as well go with the organization that (consistently) sets the bar. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to give Renney one more year, only one, to show he can actually prove out his reputation as a top developer of players. So far, in my opinion, he has mostly been part of an organization that is by no means doing a bad job at drafting. Couple with what I see as mediocre talents in being a bench boss, he has a lot to prove next season.

kaspar good point on the previous thread re Avery’s value depends on rest of teams makeup.

this is not a cup team in next 2 years in my opinion. so signing Avery for 4 yrs (and he’ll get that from someone) could be a problem in the 2nd half. he’ll be worn out by then with the way he plays. that type of player does not have a long shelf life. for entertainment value he’ll be worth it for 2 yrs. but as a piece of an ultimate cup winner by the Rangers no since we won’t be winning it this yr or next.

as far as other free agents like Straka – some seem to be dancing on his grave. I can certainly see him not being resigned and I’ll be ok with it but not of the good riddance i’m happy about it mentality. his heart deserves more than that from my fellow Ranger fans.

LI Joe – I’m totally with you about Marty. I liked that guy before he even got to the Rangers. I never saw him dog it, he always gives full effort. Myself, I wish he would stay, but not if it included his more famous countryman. I’m sure he could produce without the pampered one on the roster.

They’re a little funny. I would LOVE to see the euro/russian league(s) start signing superstar NHL players to huge contracts outside of the NHL’s salary cap constraints. Just to see the whole salary cap blow up in Bettman’s stupid face.

The lockout already blew the cap strategy. Players like Briere and Gomez made 10million last year because free agency thinned out the UFA market with longer contracts and mid-season extensions of the true elite being much wiser moves for GM’s (Heatley, Spezza, Kovalchuk, and even guys like Richards and Ovech). Can you imagine what its going to be like for a real elite player (forward or goalie) to hit the market? Insanity.

And the Omsk jokes are more than funny, they might also be TRUE! Haha.

Back to the drawing board. Rebuild. Look at next years UFA’s and target a long run in 2-3 years.

“HOKEJ.CZ: reports Rangers forward Martin Straka has been considering to return to Europe. Straka has been rumored to consider returning to HC Lassenberger Plzen of the Czech Extra League as a player and at the same time replace Tomas Kral, who became the new President of the Czech Ice Hockey Association, as the team’s GM.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: Hat tip to Alexander Wirdzek for the links and translations. The Rangers might consider re-signing Straka if they bring back Jaromir Jagr but I doubt he’d get much interest in the NHL UFA market this summer.”

I think the cap is good, but I see Beer’s point. I think it’s gonna take a few more years to even things out, once every team is handcuffed by the cap, the top guys’ salaries will come down because there won’t be money to pay them.

I think the cap was a good wake-up call, but all these new UFAs and RFAs will get too much money, and as a result, the cap will continue to go up and up, as well as salaries. They should make the maximum cap hit (as in contract limit), 10-12% of the team’s total cap, not 20%.

1) With how large the league is and how watered down the talent pool is, top players are worth SO much more than fringe players.

2) teams have the cap space to pay those players, so they get these mega contracts.

Just wait until every team has 4 or 5 contracts that eat up most of their cap space and be unable to fill out their rosters. Because of how long the contracts run now, it’s bound to happen to every team. Once that happens, the next batches of RFAs and UFAs won’t get as much money because the market won’t be able to pay them that way. Then as the salary schedule for those players becomes set at a lower standard, only the TRULY elite players get those mega contracts. Kovalchuk will be the highest paid player in the league in 2 years, and I think the summer after he is signed, salaries will go down, provided the CBA stays relatively the same.

The cap itself isn’t the problem. The problem is that it’s too hard of a cap. A soft cap with a high ‘luxury’ tax is the way to go. I understand that baseball generates more revenue in a year than hockey does in a decade, but its worked for quite a while.

Of course my judgement on this is skewed due to being a fan of a large market team. But the NHL’s cap was instituted to control revenue. To ensure that small market teams could put the same quality team on the ice that the bigger markets could afford to under a hard cap. Team revenue wouldn’t change much if teams were allowed to break the cap. The larger & canandian markets sell out their respective arenas. It won’t change that.

BUT…the league revenue would increase if those owners who’d like to spend the extra over the cap pay the league, and a % into the players escrow (cause the nhlpa would demand it) a tax to do so.

So it’s not that I don’t like the cap. I just don’t like the structure.

Or if you REALLY wanted to make in interesting and penalize teams for breaking the cap, you could look at draft picks. Not necessarily taking them away, but removing ‘balls’ from the lottery for teams that are over the cap. Now, no one wants to lose there balls, do they?

Beer, we can’t soft cap like that though. Think about it. Hossa is going on the market. What stops the Rangers or Canadians from throwing $10 million per season at him? Or Campbell? What would Lundqvist had held out for if he knew the Rangers could openly violate the cap?

A soft cap would be like no cap at all to the big market teams. It would just be an excuse to smal market teams to not have to spend too much money. But let’s face facts: Canada, the Rangers, the Red Wings, and maybe like 1 or 2 other teams would buy every good player.

I know, I admit that anything I say about it is NOT impartial. That’s why they’d have to get pretty creative with a way to penalize for over-spending.

But I agree with your post above too, re: the ‘gap’ in salaries. Sometimes it almost seems like it valid. Because the gap in talent IS that obvious sometimes. Retraction woulda fixed the problem a long time ago.

That’s the thing doodie. There’d have to be something in place to protect the owners from themselves. I don’t really know what the answer is. Maybe even tweaking the buy-out options. Again, buy a guy out, and pay a ‘tax’ on that too. It’s all good for the league revenues, and those revenue’s would keep the smaller markets afloat.

I saw a rumor that Redden’s asking price will be around $5mil. And that he’s aware he’ll be looking at a paycut from the $6.5 he made last season. So my question is…Redden for $5m or Rozy for $5m? If you HAD to choose.

Rozy is lucky if he gets 2.5, from anyone. Not even kidding. He is dreadful defensively. His production dried up halfway through the season. He doesn’t pass well, he just has a blistering shot that he doesn’t use. PLUS he is coming off major (knee? I forget) surgery.

Though, I’d rather get Streit for 4 or Liles for 3,if either of those were options.

“The cap itself isnâ€™t the problem. The problem is that itâ€™s too hard of a cap. A soft cap with a high â€˜luxuryâ€™ tax is the way to go.”

I have to agree with Doodie, a soft cap is a problem, it still allows those with deep pockets to pay more (i.e Boston Red Sox, NY Yankees) and if they can handle a fine (tax) then they get the better players. In the NHL, it could be too much of a temptation for teams like the Rangers to get back into bad habits because they have a huge bank account to bail them out.

Look at Pittsburgh, they snagged 5 picks 5 years in a row (2002-0 that were either #1 or #2( with Ryan Whitney being picked #5) and now they cannot afford to keep all of them. I guarantee with a soft cap the Penguins find a way to keep these players and it upsets the balance.

Would you give Pitkanen an offer sheet, or alternatively, make a deal for him. Wouldn’t take much.. maybe one of our small wings (Prucha, Sjostrom, Callahan, or Dawes) and potentially a project minor leaguer (Jessiman, Gratton).

Jonathan- The Rangers have two years to make an offer for kids in Junior, and four years for kids in college. I’m not sure what it means for kids like 20 year old Dale Weise who only has an overage year left in junior. So Lafleur is very much a part of the Rangers organization, though he is going to have a tough go of it after the sub-par year he had.

CHERAPANOV is definitely playing in Omsk this year, but he is allowed to attend training camp. I don’t know if he’ll be allowed to play in any exhibition games, since the Russian pro league starts earlier than the NHL.

WALLINGFORD: There is a reason this guy wasn’t drafted. He wasn’t eligible this year. He didn’t show any offense his draft eligible years and his skating is suspect. He is a project, and a longshot project at best. If (and it’s a big IF) he earns an invite to training camp, he most likely is looking at a few years in the ECHL and then the AHL (on a minor league contract) before getting a shot. IT took Dan Girardi several years to earn a shot with the big club. Sure, it would be nice to think we could find an undrafted version of Chara, but let’s be realistic. This isn’t a movie where some scout finds a kid playing hockey in the middle of nowhere. If he was the real deal and had a can’t miss talent, he would have been signed by the rangers (or any of 29 other teams!) rather than a no commitment invite to a conditioning camp. Yeah, the size is exciting, but lets not get ahead of ourselves!

Hugh Jessiman and other players who have more than a year of AHL experience would not be invited (nor benefit from attending) the conditioning camp. It’s so the Rangers can get a good look at what they have.

College players like CARL HAGELIN have to play their own way to this camp, so it makes sense that Hagelin wouldn’t want to pay for a trip to New York from Sweden. Interesting that Stepan is going.

DOODIE- I agree with you on the fact that long term mega contracts in the past have not panned out. But the ones you mentioned aren’t really good examples. I think Holik, Keane and Skrudland are the best examples of Free Agents who seemed to not play the way they were supposed to. Kamensky was done to pretty much every one who saw him play and was an oversigning at best. Kovalev was a trade the second time around, and he just never had consistency, I don’t think he relaxed with a big contract, since I don’t think he ever signed a big contract with the Rangers except his first one. Lindros was not expected to do much and he was traded for, not signed. I actually think he did pretty well for the Rangers, except the getting hurt part (which was to be expected!). Robitaille was a disaster, but he was traded for, sucked as a Ranger, and then scored again when he left. That’s why I can’t understand how people are so down on Jagr. The guy is probably the only superstar who succeeded when he got to Broadway!

Succeeding is a very relative term when discussing Jagr. If you mean by scoring goals then sure, he succeeded his first season but then dislocated his shoulder in the first round and got swept. The next two years Jagr was never the same and it could be argued that his successes (2 first round playoff wins) were actually to the credit of Avery and Lundqvist who both not only carried the team through those rounds but also inspired the 20-30 game season finishes which propelled the rags to the playoffs. If left to Jagr’s devices alone, the Rangers don’t even make the playoffs during the past 2 seasons.

CM – True with the examples, I just had so many underachievers to choose from that it was hard to disseminate which guys were signed or traded for. I did think of Keane right after I posted it. Holik was the best example though and I totally forgot him.

I would say that Skrudland DID play the way he was supposed to though. He was just overpaid.

Truefans, you could not be more wrong about the final 20-30 games of the season. Both years, Jagr literally carried the team on his back (along with Hank). Just look at his game-by-game point totals.

As for the first round victories, again, Jagr was great in both. In the Devils series this year, Jagr had 2 goals and 6 assists. Avery had 3 goals and 2 assists, all of which but one assist came in the first 3 games. BTW, the rest of the playoffs for Avery after those three games: 1 goal, 2 assists. Jagr’s stats in the Pittsburgh series alone: 3g, 4a. Jagr had the best playoffs out of any
Rangers skater, by FAR.

Avery is, and always will be, a nobody. I seriously can’t wait for him to be gone.

funny you should say that doodie. I just read Fischler’s blog at msg.com and he stated something along the lines of – the rangers got him for basically nothing cause no one else wanted the headache, and to let him walk, you’re not losing that much.

Also, in brooksy’s artcile yesterday, he talked about jags and the team knowing that there’s other discussions other than dollars and cents. Along the lines of…’we’re not going out and buying guys you want to play with’. Moreso, ‘this is the system, want to play it?’

Although we don’t know the outcome of ANY of this yet, I DO like the teams approach this off-season. They seriously look like they’ve identified what needs to be done. It just a matter of pulling it off.

Truefans, you could not be more wrong about the final 20-30 games of the season. Both years, Jagr literally carried the team on his back (along with Hank). Just look at his game-by-game point totals.
……….

So why were the Rangers a bubble team this year [between 8th-10 place], before Avery came back?! Where was Jagr and your savior Drury then? And why too were the Rangers in 10th place last year when Avery was aquired? Why is it that the Rangers have a 50-20-10 record with Avery in the lineup? Was Jagr also the one who got Kovalchuk, Brodeur, and Tkachuk off of their games in those first round series?

Doodie, here’s why you’re a hypocrite, because you talk all this nonsense about “look what else Drury does in addition to scoring points!” but you can’t see what else Avery has done. I never said Avery had the best playoff points performance in the playoffs! However, if you look at what else Avery did against Atl last year and the Devils this year, he may have been the most influential Ranger in both series. Sorry man.

There is also an uncanny coincidence for when the Rangers started winning streaks and when Avery was aquired and/or in the lineups…both late in the seasons.

LI JOE- Agreed (although my name is Mark, and as much as my parents were hockey fans, I can’t claim that I was named after Mess!). He was a great traded superstar and I agree with Salty that Fleury played as advertised until his demons caught up with him. I felt that Fleury was always entertaining and he at least gave a damn when most of the others on the team didn’t. My point on Jagr is this:

Yes, it may be time to let him go, but the guy produced pretty regularly from the time he was acquired onward. Yeah, his numbers were down this year, but so were everyone elses on the team. He was a great quote, who always told you how he felt and not the standard insert-cliche-here comment. He helped us back to respectability and pretty much was the focal point of the other teams strategy whether he deserved it or not. He could single handedly control a game and dominate at times (and there aren’t many players who can do this at all, let alone on a regular basis.) The team will miss him. Whether other will step up remains to be seen.

Drury and Avery both added more to the team than stats will show. Drury is probably overpaid, but he will have a lasting impact on future players. Avery gave us an edge, but with a player like that you have to wonder if his “magic” will eventually disappear and he wears out his welcome? I hope he’s matured and I hope that there isn’t a major problem with him in the lockerroom as has been rumored. I have a feeling that if he is not resigned, it will have nothing to do with money, it will be because he has lost the respect of his coaches and teammates. I’m not saying that all teams need to get along perfectly, but if a guy is a cancer, you have to cut him out.

See that’s the thing with Jags and Avery…that there’s a CHANCE that either Avery could become a cancer, or jags could further decline. OR worse, wait even longer to get his head out of his ass and play the f’n game EVERY NIGHT.

If you can eliminate risks like that, you’re far better off. Unless you’re a gambling man and willing to subject developing talent to that type of thing.

enough about the avery stats..give me a break..the guy will miss at least 30 games a yr..he is a headcase..we do not need him more than he needs us..i want campbell and orpik..we need two defensemen..can someone pls send jessiman back to the roller hockey league..guy is horrendous